(I’m a housing officer for the council, and part of my role includes checking bed and breakfast accommodation provided as a temporary measure to homeless families to make sure the hotels are up to standard. Normally, this is more a formality than anything, and the couple of hotels we use regularly all know me and let me get on with it. On this occasion, I go to reception and ask them to contact the people we have placed so I can then go and do the room checks; instead, the manager says he will take me up to each room and let me in if there is no answer. The first two rooms get checked with no problem. At the third, no one answers, so after knocking, the manager enters the room.)

Me: “Oh, it looks like there’s a leak in the bathroom; the carpet around the door is soaked!”

(We knock and then open the bathroom door. The toilet seat and lid is down, but water is clearly flowing down the outside of the toilet bowl onto the floor, and the floor is covered in a layer of water.)

Hotel Manager:*stepping into the puddle in his normal work shoes* “I’ll fix that!”

(He then proceeded to flush the already overflowing toilet without even opening the lid to see what might be causing the problem or what might come out. His look of consternation and slight panic as the flush predictably caused a small tidal wave to cross the floor and splash God knows what up his legs was the highlight of my day. Not sure we’ll be using them again!)

I am working the front desk at a veterinary hospital when a man comes in to tell us that he has discovered worms in his dog’s stool. He wants us to test the sample he has brought.

The problem is that he’s brought the sample in a dirty noodle cup because “that’s all he had at the time.” I tell him that we cannot accept the sample but that we’d be happy to test another.

He then tells me it will be a long time before he can bring another in, because he’ll have to go looking for the worms again.

I wind up having to get one of the vet techs to explain to the man that we examine for eggs under a microscope, not visible worms, and that under no circumstances can we accept a sample that is sitting in noodle sauce. I’m not sure he ever understood.

(Growing up, my father always hated when we ate suckers and other types of food which made us have sticky hands and faces. I never understood the problem with it until I got older. My wife and I decide to allow our young sun to have his very first sucker candy. He really starts to go crazy on it, both because of the sugar and because of it helping with his teething. I’m sitting on the couch and I noticed the sticky, sugar spit all over his face… and his hands.)

Me: “Oh, God… He’s so sticky!”

Wife: “Yep! He’s going to get you, Daddy!”

Me: “Noooo… No no no no no! Keep him away from me! That’s gross!”

(My wife just starts laughing and goes to get the baby wipes to start cleaning him off when my son RUNS over to me, forces the slobbery and sticky sucker into my hand, uses my arm to climb up me with this sticky hands, and grabs the sucker back from my hand as I’m sitting there in stunned silence. He proceeds to worm his way behind me, put the sucker in his mouth… and run his hands from my neck into my hair, then pull the sucker out and drum on my bare back with it.)

Me: “EWW! OH, GOD! It’s all over my back!”

(My wife is howling with laughter, trying to get a picture just as my father arrives and sees what is going on, with my son still running the sucker up and down my back, while slapping me with his other sticky hand.)

Father: “YES! JUSTICE! Good job, [Son]!”

(We both got a baby wipe bath after that, and I decided he had enough of the sucker for the day.)

I work in a coffee shop in a very student-heavy town. We are known globally for the standard of our students. The coffee shop is attached to a bar, so when the cafe closes, the bar opens, and we often clear the bar area in the mornings.

I get assigned a new coworker who is a student at the local university. On his first day, he has his safety talk and induction. On the second day, I have to remind him that taking a tray out of the 200-degree oven with your bare hands is not a good idea, as it will hurt. This lesson has to be repeated every day until it is decided he isn’t safe near the oven.

On the next week, he and I are on opening duties, so we have to clear the bar area. I take all the dregs and put them in a jug; as I am clearing I put the jug on the side. This brain box decides to try and drink the dregs, is promptly sick, and is sent home.

After this and similar instances of brainlessness, he is let go from the company. Can’t say I miss the walking disaster.

(I work nights at a hotel and am pretty used to the random types of people we get. This night I am sitting in the back office behind the lobby counter. We have an arcade right next to the lobby.)

Coworker: “There’s a couple of hookers with two guys, and they want to play pool.”

(I go to the side of the counter and look at the window’s reflection to see four people hanging out around the pool table. One of the girls is digging through her purse for change and the other looks like she is picking a wedgie when…)

Wedgie Girl: “I found a 20-dollar Canadian bill in my butthole!”

(I laughed so hard I had to go into the back and wipe the tears from my eyes.)